Working on the next Patreon as we speak, and the next main site post will be up Friday. Both are about half done. I've gotten into a habit of working on 4-5 comics at once. I'm finding it helps a lot with consistency. The last seven parts of the comic were the re-introduction of the sisters, and I wanted it to be as ridiculously over the top as I could make it. With how they were introduced, and with detail and art. I did as many full horizontal panels as I could to make it feel as cinematic as possible, with plenty of upward face angles (ala movie "hero shots.") 
I staged those comics back in March, and have worked on them for several months. All incredibly time consuming, but its exactly the presentation I wanted. The sisters will conclude this story and take us through the next arc. 
The ending of this current storyline more or less rounds out all the previous stories. Her current job, her past work experience/co-workers, the camsite, and her sisters are all playing a role. Ellie is using all her resources to resolve her current situation. As always, I'm super excited to bring you this comic, and I value your readership. Thank you for bearing with me if I'm behind at times. You only deserve the best comic I can possibly make, and that's why I spend 16 hours a day in front of the computer toiling over it. :) -Chris
There goes our security deposit..
94 thoughts on “There goes our security deposit..”
FIRST!
Breaking through the wall of the venue? That’s a paddlin’.
That’s not a paddlin’ I’d want to try and hand out, though. You’d lose that hand, and who knows what else.
Maybe that’s what happened to Wheelchair Ninja.
“He had a bad way of asking.” means “He started with a slap to the rump.” That’s actually really feasible.
Paddlin’ the F5 key!
Much F5 Smwoosh
Careful, or you two will go blind (or at least that’s the old wife’s tale).
Do you mean from when the F5 key is finally fed up with all of the unwanted attention and calls out to one “9” and two “1” keys to break off and attack, thus they ricochet around the room until they are able to vector in on an angle that would not only me our pupils go albino, but Fred Sanford would finally have the ‘big one?’
That’s oddly specific.
At any rate, it’s good that Rusche holds off now. Release that new comic tomorrow, when we can really take advantage of the first day uptick on TWC.
Once again Tarragon out does herself. Who couldn’t love a girl who can punch down a wall.
Especially one who can also invent self-healing walls so it’s not a bunch of work every time that using the door just wouldn’t cut it.
Her pose suggests she didn’t even hit it that hard. She just knocked on it and it crumbled.
Now that I think about it she’s a warrior, a scientist, and a businesswoman. She’s every Crab Family combined into one super lady. The Perfect One indeed.
Rule 1: Doors are for losers.
That should be the alternate title!
Time consuming, absolutely. But look what it’s done. You’ve gone up 20 places in the TWC rankings since this little arc started. And we ALL know what impact better TWC rankings have on overall readership.
‘nother words, if you’re not calling it worth it, then there’s not much that will prove it thus.
It’s the “sister effect.” There was a HUGE bump in TWC rank during the black Friday arc also.
Quiet, you yutz! I’m trying to prove why regular updates are a good idea!
So is regular voting! Vote early and often!
They are a good idea. The sister effect being, with regular updates, comes better rankings. :p
There was also one hell of an uptick in voting for the March Madness against SSSS and the other people pitted against SS that year.
….and an epic battle it was, too.
So. . .
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<. .>
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. . SO EPIC!!!
Do you by chance have Anise (minus “much woosh”) in convenient desktop background size by chance ;)
You know, that’s not a bad idea. Might be possible for each of them to have a cinematic wallpaper of their own.
Awww, the ‘much whoosh’ must stay! But another vote for sister wallpapers.
I question your judgement in the removal of “Much Whoosh”. Without that, it would seem almost out of character for Anise.
The door was like right there. What is it with the sisters and their aversion to using doors?
It’s less dramatic that way!
Ackchyually, do you even know what the floorplan is on the other side of that wall? There could be another wall perpendicular to the one we see, that separates the door from the section that was broken.
If you look at the ceiling trim, it runs together perfectly even through the separation of panels.
Actually, all the woodwork. It’s seamless.
We don’t know how much wall space was cropped out by the gutter. There could be feet – dozens of them! – that was cropped in the gutter.
I know Juniper was way behind and slower than her older siblings, and Tarra was in a flying mech suit, and they’re all together now. So Tarra would’ve easily had time to scout the building and find a less damaging way to enter had she so chosen. So I think Tarra just thought the hole in the wall was appropriate for mood.
When all you have is an undisclosed array of super powers everything starts looking like a chance to show off.
“The ending of this current storyline more or less rounds out all the previous stories. Her current job, her past work experience/co-workers, the camsite, and her sisters are all playing a role. Ellie is using all her resources to resolve her current situation.”
Does this statement remind anyone else of the last episode of Golden Boy?
I don’t know what Golden Boy is but now I kinda wanna recast Golden Girls with the Buckingham Sisters…
I think we can pull that off.
Ginger as Dorothy. Juniper as Blanche. Cinnamon as Rose. And Mother Buckingham as Sophia.
Good night, Cinnamon. Pray for brains.
That doesn’t work, Rose was way too sweet to be played by Cinnamon.
There’s no other fit, though.
Anise could fit. She’s a little more misanthropic. Rose certainly would’ve also found tattoo shops to be areas of pen famines.
Yeah, but you never saw Rose run through windows or flash Santa Claus. Not even in St. Olaf.
The fact that we didn’t see it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I think I DO choose to believe that happened off camera now.
Don’t you realize that for it to be correct, Pumpkin would have to be Sophia.
Golden Boy is a six part anime about a genius who dropped out of college so he could study life. He rides around Japan on his bicycle helping people, (mostly sexy women) and is a pervert with a heart of gold. You can watch it on Youtube snd is actually pretty good so check it out.
…and then do yourself a favor and *don’t* look up the manga. There are many chapters, and they are almost all trash, pretty much immediately following the events of the manga (to the point that it retroactively ruins the anime).
I just realized how funny it is for Ginger to be dressed up like Kim Possible when Tarragon is the one who can do anythimg. Like say, fix a broken wall, hint hint.
No, I think we’re discovering something else.
Rusche mentioned a bit about how Anise’s beard fixation started with childhood images (see http://shotgunshuffle.com/comic/stuck-in-the-middle-with-you/#comment-16267 ). What we’re seeing now is a hint that Tarra’s big childhood influence and one true love is, in fact, the Kool-Aid Man.
As long as none of the girls has an obsession with the Pizza Noid I’ll sleep peacefully at night!
Also, Oh Yeaeeeeeeeeh!
I didn’t even notice she was dressed as Kim Possible until that question, haha.
Mission accomplished on the sisters re-introduction. They’re beautiful pieces individually and collectively. And thanks for that process gif at the end and the amount of time spent. It gives a better appreciation of what you go through to bring such a beautiful comic.
Also, the door is like, right there. XD
It’s all good schtuff
yo
B!!!
Tired Guy? Durkin? Fireworks begin in 7…
No one cares about your damn “upward face shots”, we want more T&A!!!
:P
Quiet you. :D
Really I think that’d get irritating. Rusche’s stated that he wants to keep this at PG-13 level. He’s already got quite a curvy set of characters, some of whom do dress to impress at times. Aiming for more than what comes naturally from that could easily get irritating fast.
I’ve got nothing against comics that show full nudity (or are even pretty well porn comics), but sometimes when a comic (or TV show or movie or whatever) tries to toe the line on titillation while not quite crossing the nudity boundary, it just starts reminding me of the ridiculousness of the one Austin Powers skit and starts getting irritating.
Much better to decide limits/boundaries in a that kind of direction and then write/direct-the-camera to what stays within those bounds naturally.
Just so we’re clear- I was joking around. I think the strip has all the fanservice it can handle already.
I usually use a smiley-face to indicate when I’m not being serious in posts since you loose so many other tonal indicators when writing instead of speaking to someone face-to-face. The English language really needs a character that indicates sarcasm.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, you (Marty McFly quote)
This week was a pain. I was actually too tired to be at a keyboard when I responded there. Also smileys tend to not pass my perceptual filter, so I tend not to notice them.
NOOOOOOOOOOO, you (Marty McFly quote)!!!!
I’m curious how KK’s going to take this hole in the wall (assuming Tarra doesn’t techno-magic it away).
Also – Rusche, I love the regular updates, but 16 hour days are sprinting, not going for distance. Don’t exhaust yourself (and your immune system) too badly.
Hopefully now that he can stop doing seven-panel runs every time, the workload will lessen substantially.
damn rusche, every day is like a chocolate shoppe with you
thanks for whatever the fuck it is you sweat that i’m pretty sure is no longer blood
He, he. I finally figured out how to work Gravatar. You’re all going to drown in a flood of chibi fanart.
Eh. There’s worse ways to go.
Didn’t make the oldest sister’s Kim Possible look until she said ‘What’s the sitch?’
Here’s an odd question that’s not really specific to this comic but that I’ve had for a while. It was established WAY back in the original “Word of God” breakdown of the sisters (found in Chris’s comments for the comic “Odds Are”) that Ginger’s brunette hair color is dyed. I don’t know if this question has been asked or answered before (I looked and couldn’t find if i twas but I may have missed it) but is GInger’s natural hair color red? It would be perfect because then her name would not only match a spice, but have additional significance because of her hair color. Also redheads are hawt.
I thought Ginger was also a blonde, but a redhead would work with that name. And yes, yes, redheads ARE hot, but be careful what you wish for.
Speaking of hair color, is Cinn’s natural color black to match her soul?
BTW, Ginger, Tarra, and Juni especially look awesome in their ‘entry stance’.
Cinnamon’s hair is natural, the only other dye job is Anise and it was more or less confirmed by comments in the black Friday arc that she dyes it to match Santa’s beard.
Yeah in the flashbacks Ginger had brown hair.
That might just mean that she started dyeing it during her teen years.
Then again, a woman that is not against changing her hair color yet still keeps the same color for at least a decade might be the most unrealistic thing this comic has ever shown ;-)
Nice KP reference.
Rusch needs to do a Kickstarter to get this thing into print. How many of us would buy the collected strips from first to the end of this story arc? I know I would, just to see the evolution of his artistic style from start (like a daily comic strip) to now (a true webcomic).
Plus, having it in print would make it so much easier to flip through and annotate for all the sly references.
While I’d like that book, it would be HELL for Rusche. Every page is a different length. He would have a terrible time fitting them into same sized pages.
I’d volunteer for that editing job.
I’d certainly back if he decided to do it, but I think it’d be an enormous amount of work for him. The non-standard comic sizes would make page layout a pain, and he’s said many times that he doesn’t like looking at his old artwork, so it’s questionable if he’d do a book without redrawing a lot of the older art.
Like I said, I’d volunteer.
A man who’s stated he’s scrapped and redrawn a complete comic out of deciding on one small dialog change which then resulted in facial expression and pacing change in the other panels doesn’t seem like a likely candidate for wanting to farm out artistic decisions.
No offense intended to you and your dedication and/or editing ability here, I just think that Rusche’s vision for this comic is sufficiently personal that I would doubt how much he’d be willing to farm out to anyone. If anything, I could see him considering farming out a first pass and then redoing 3/4 of it, which at that point he might feel bad about doing with a long-time fan who volunteered his time for the endeavor.
Well that’s drastic, now they leave for they don’t want to help.
and only now do i realize she’s dressed like Kim Possible
Yep, totally did not see that.
Juniper, at least, will be on board with Ellie’s plan as soon as she hears it. “You want me to flirt with guys, and I get free drinks the whole time I’m doing it?” Cinnamon is likely on board as well, but she’ll be looking for a sugar daddy to replace Derek (link). Pumpkin would do it just to help Ellie, and will likely limit her drinking to Shirley Temples or other non-alcoholic drinks. I think the others will probably help too… Anise will talk to the men with beards (but probably beat up anyone in a fake beard *cough* Alex), Ginger will approve of Ellie not being lazy, and who knows, maybe there are one or two guys in that huge crowd who are not blathering blatherskites.
Where’s Tarra’s mecha suit?
It falls off when she does her Final Smash.
It’s circling the building to bring up the flank
In the parking lot with Ginger’s van.
and you do NOT want to be the one to accidentally set off its mecha suit alarm. Not just beeping and loud noises out of it.
Does any of this thread make people think of the robot from “Robot Chicken” getting it on with that lease?
What does Ellie do when the call from her sisters goes out? Does she have a power outfit? Does she whoosh at all, let alone much? Does she run in uber-bodacious slo-mo? Does she mince in, a la Posh Spice in heels?
Her sister title is also the Lazy one. So I suspect she’d beat Juniper’s enthusiasm and maybe Cinn’s, but otherwise be fairly low key. Also she has a jeep now, so I suspect that she’d drive that to respond.
The Jeep would be all Daisy Duke (from the TV show) flying in after loosing Roscoe and Enos at the empty bridge that Frog and The Bandit jumped to get away from Sheriff Buford T. Justice.
Okay, guys, I know there’s no new strip and that makes it tougher, but now’s the time to vote on TWC! I just voted, and the numbers went from 125 to 42, so get in, vote, and let’s try and keep Chris in the top 50!
HAAAA the one dressed in Kim Possibles classic look said the line